Hot Topics:

advertise-opportunity

Hickenlooper defends Colorado drilling regulations during debate

By Mark JaffeThe Denver Post

Posted:
04/01/2013 06:38:37 PM MDT

Updated:
04/02/2013 01:08:12 PM MDT

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper and Boulder County Commissioner Elise Jones took part in a University of Denver sponsored debate on hydraulic fracturing in the Frederick H. Ricketson Jr. Law Building on the DU campus on April 1, 2013. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post)

Gov. John Hickenlooper defended the state's authority over local communities in regulating oil and gas drilling Monday during a debate that echoed the battle unfolding in lawsuits and legislation.

Squaring off against Boulder County Commissioner Elise Jones, Hickenlooper set out his position on an issue that has sparked strong opposition in cities and counties across the Front Range.

Three minutes into Hickenlooper's presentation at the University of Denver's Sturm College of Law, a heckler shouted, "You are a liar who works on behalf of the oil-and-gas industry."

The man was removed from the audience — as were two more hecklers during the 45-minute session.

Boulder County Commissioner Elise Jones addresses the audience ag University of Denver-sponsored debate on hydraulic fracturing in the Frederick H. Ricketson Jr. Law Building on the DU campus on April 1, 2013. (THE DENVER POST | Helen H. Richardson)

Oil and gas development has soared on the Front Range, with oil production hitting a 57-year high in 2012. That has spurred communities including Boulder County to draw up their own drilling rules.

At the legislature, lawmakers have filed six bills to control aspects of oil and gas development.

The state and the oil-and-gas industry have filed lawsuits against the city of Longmont over its drilling regulations and its ban on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Fracking pumps hundreds of thousands to millions of gallons of water, sand and trace chemicals into a well to crack rock and release oil and gas.

"Fracking for oil and gas is an intensive industrial process with a heavy footprint," said Jones, former head of the nonprofit Colorado Environmental Coalition. "It is not something you want near your home."

Advertisement

Hickenlooper countered that Colorado has adopted some of the strongest regulations in the nation, including increasing setbacks of wells from homes, and requiring groundwater testing and disclosure of most of the chemicals in fracking fluid.

"The state's rules must be a floor, not a ceiling," Jones said. "Cities and counties have to be able to go further based on the desires and needs of their residents."

The debate balanced on the fulcrum of the power of local government versus owners of private property.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, right, and Boulder County Commisioner Elise Jones, thanked each other after a April 1, 2013, debate. (THE DENVER POST | Helen H. Richardson)

"What would be wrong with us banning drilling and fracking in residential neighborhoods? It is a ludicrous place to drill," Jones asked. "Why are we having an argument about drilling in cities and towns?"

Hickenlooper said that because the owners of the surface and the minerals below are often different, there is an obligation to provide the mineral owners access to their property.

"What planner, what affected neighborhood or elected official is not going to want to get rid of or make it impossibly hard to get to those minerals?" Hickenlooper said.

This would be a "taking" of a private property right by the local government, he said.

Jones said that such rules or bans were not necessarily a taking.

"When you buy a property like an oil-and-gas lease, you are not buying the right to pollute your neighbor," Jones countered.

"As we learn more about public impacts, it could be that courts say they don't have the right to foist toxic air emissions on their neighbors," she said.

Hickenlooper and Jones also sparred over the role that natural gas plays in the energy profile of Colorado and the nation.

Switching from coal-fired to natural-gas-fired electricity generation will cut air pollutants from power plants by 70 percent to 80 percent, Hickenlooper said.

The switch has helped cut U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide — a greenhouse gas linked to climate change — to levels not seen since the early 1960s, Hickenlooper said.

"Inexpensive natural gas is the best opportunity we have to a transition to a greener economy," Hickenlooper said.

Oil and gas operations, however, contribute about 55 percent of the volatile organic- chemical air emissions that contribute to ozone or smog on the Front Range, Jones said.

"Even if natural gas might have some advantages, that doesn't mean we have to allow it to pollute our neighborhoods," Jones said.

The debate was sponsored by the college's Natural Resources & Environmental Law Society.

Local duo joining overseas exhibition excursionFilippo Swartz went to Italy, where his mother was born and he spent the first year or so of his life, every summer until he had to stick around to be a part of summer football activities for the Longmont High School team. Full Story

MacIntyre says the completed project will be best in Pac-12There were bulldozers, hard hats, mud, concrete trucks, blueprints, mud, cranes, lots of noise and, uh, mud, during the last recruiting cycle when Colorado football coach Mike MacIntyre brought recruits to campus. Full Story

Most people don't play guitar like Grayson Erhard does. That's because most people can't play guitar like he does. The guitarist for Fort Collins' Aspen Hourglass often uses a difficult two-hands-on-the-fretboard technique that Eddie Van Halen first popularized but which players such as Erhard have developed beyond pop-rock vulgarity.
Full Story